Recent reviews by Machariel

It's got everything. Wicked new weapons. Flashy Ashes. Massive bosses. Lore. Gorgeous environments, fights, NPCs. And, my personal favourite: People ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the difficulty of something we were explicitly told was not going to be easy. The area is NOT Limgrave, that was the classic Miyazaki Misdirect - it's akin to Limgrave + Caelid, plus the underground sections. It's filled with catacombs, caves, and secrets. Most of which are pleasantly tucked behind a moderate challenge, with some being locked behind unbearable walls of pain, designed to flatten you and remind you that this IS a FromSoft game and you are GOING to die.

It is FAR more challenging than the base game, as we were told, though there a few caveats to bear in mind when deciding to pick this up: if, like me, you've done a couple of playthroughs already, this is going to be much tougher. The area contains a unique "Blessing" system, which decreases the damage you take and increases what you deal by an approximate 4% per blessing tier, to a max of 20. What isn't told to you, is that this APPARENTLY carries over between NG cycles - essentially, if you're on NG+2, you'll have missed 2 cycles of this blessing. It's gonna be tough. Personally, I love the challenge, but be aware of it. For what it's worth, at tier 6, I've managed to take out a handful of remembrance bosses. Most were 3 shotting me, harder hitting attacks 2 shotting, and the big flashy moves OHK if I get hit. Everything sort of feels like I'm fighting Midir all over again. It's crazy fun.

There are a couple points I think could use improving:

Optimization: One of the few critiques I agree with, the game has some occasional stutters, and if you're running high graphics, there are some areas that are BEAUTIFUL and will raise your GPU temps by 20°C. Has been mostly fine for me, but I have noticed little dips here and there.

Reused bosses: Generally, this is minor, and quite rare. But there are a couple of bosses which are reskins/repeat fights from the base game, which feel like an odd design choice when surrounded by new, crazy enemies. Not really an issue, but I would've preferred to see a unique enemy guarding it's unique weapon.

The map: This one has persisted from the base game, but is made much, much worse by the incredible verticality in Shadow of the Erdtree. Trying to navigate the underground sections is probably a bigger challenge than most of the bosses. The map does not show ANYTHING when you are in a separate level, it just shows you on the overworld. Considering how much content is involved with the underground areas, I would've REALLY liked to see a tiered map like in the base game. Anything would be better than navigating blind.

Finally, if you're seriously still not sold after reading these reviews while listening to the trailer playing:

You can get a dragon wife. Not a creepy puppet. A full on, walking, talking, summonable, lightning-mace wielding badass.

Buy the damn DLC.

Preface: I have not had the issues described by many others, despite using an older (i7 6700k) CPU with a 980Ti. I have, however, experienced some frame rate instability, and most recently, an odd freezing/frame drop upon fainting.

Pros:
Monsters are super cool, far more monsters. Looking forward to Safi coming out so we can have a real endgame.

New weapons and armour are awesome.

New living area(!) is FANTASTIC. Love it.

Hoarfrost Reach is an amazing and super interactable environment, lots of things to mess with.

E N D E M I C L I F E


Cons:

There is a coin toss where Iceborne might just brick your Monster Hunter. Good luck.

One area and the "Guiding Lands" (rehashed World Environments with tidbits of extra stuff) is in my opinion, a little lacklustre for a $50 DLC.

The jump from HR to MR can be a bit violent, and it feels like fainting due to bad luck (stunlock/toxic, etc) becomes far easier.

From a personal view, I was super excited to fight Barioth again, but his moveset feels lacklustre and clunky compared to the fluidity in previous games. It seems like this was overcompensated by giving him excessively large movements, which work beautifully aboveground, but in smaller areas parts of his body tend to clip through walls and he feels oddly less Barioth.

The power spike in weapons from HR to MR feels inconsistent on some weapon types.


All in all:

Worth buying if you're confident in your PC, or your luck, depending on which you've sunk more money into. Love the returning monsters, most new subspecies are unique and fun. New area is gorgeous, but for the pricetag of another MH:W, I was hoping for a touch more. 7/10

It's Destiny.

Space Magic. Space guns. Space massacres.

Yeah, there are still some flaws to it, and there always will be - it's a constantly changing and evolving sandbox. PvE is amazing. I think Raids beat WoW raids. PvP is like a better CoD, with lasers, space magic, and more fun.

There's a thriving community that you can play with wherever you go, and clans to help you tackle group activities should you want to.

If you played D1, play D2. If you've never played either, play D2.

Broke my lungs. 10/10 would swordfight again.